MattJ, point taken. Read my recent post though to see where im coming from as far as crosstraining goes.

Im still unsure about historical accuracy myself, I and others I think are still searching, and probaly wont stop. But my search is not specifically to find ground fighting in karate, my interest lies within history itself. I find historical aspects interesting regardless of what they are. It just so happens that some things lead me and plenty of others to believe ground fighting was a aspect of Karate, or at least an aspect of fighting that could have influenced Karate.

I can acknowledge some things I know I learned from other arts and people. But those very same things I also stumbled upon through simple study of kata. Who has the right to say what came first? Especially in someones personal studies. Its only being dishonest because someone else thinks im lieing. Its almost like a Paradox.

Either way, the subject is fun to discuss, and I do get carried away. I do generalize who and what im talking to/about. Sorry about that.

The problem with perceiving one's self as having found the way, is that it invariably closes ones mind to other possibilities.

I imagine most folks here who hold a firm opinion on this subject hold it because just like you and med and jude they have studied and researched and trained, but they have come to different conclusions.

By your posts, a lack of belief in Ground-Karate is the mark of a lack of understanding, and yet in one of your posts you fail to see how a simple basic block can realisticly be applied as a block.

My training and research brought me squarely to the conclusion that schoolboy block/punch karate is one of the most brilliant and effective self defense methods and that most folk who've jumped on the grappling band wagon have missed the point and instead of learning real karate have stretched and reached with every twisted vain shred of hope and delusioned imagining, (such as the notion that a school boy getting some smaller kids to pin him and fighting them off is evidence of groundfighting training in Karate), to turn Karate into some Uber-MMA that was locking up and choking pretenders from the dawn of time.

So who needs to learn from who?

Actually although I disagree with the historical premise for Karate-grappling I think if those are the applications and training you wish to study thats great. We can all learn from each other, but its no good being open minded in only one direction. You have in your posts shown yourself guilty of precisely the same closed mindedness of which you accuse those who disagree with you. You've failed to acknowledge that while you've achieved some level of knowledge in a particular direction, the rest of us might have as well.

Well said man! You've prompted me to mention that part of the reason I get weirded out when people go off about all the cool grappling in karate is that all the "school boy" stuff is indeed ALOT more than what people have been led to believe it is.

The best karate I have personally experienced came from guys showing me kihon in a way I had never understood it before, none of it involved groundfighting, and all of it was amazingly simple, elegant, and effective, it was the same "schoolboy techniques" as I assume they were intended to be, and the difference was enough to make me say "wow".

From my own point of view, this kind of thing exemplifies Karate much more than the various armbars or takedowns or what have you in Kata, I study those too, but without the basic fundamental stuff none of those applications mean a whole lot to me.

Quote:So in essence, Shonuff, you are saying that people who see ground fighting applications are missing the boat on the blocking and striking aspects of karate. Is that what you are trying to say?

Here's my take: Focusing too much on grappling and groundfighting in the dojo for me confuses the strategic framework of Karate, which is in the end a percussive-oriented discipline.

It's not that I dislike learning the other stuff, I simply try to keep it in the proper context as I believe Karate is a percussive discipline, and thus the centerpiece of it is striking and skils related to giving and receiving strikes.

Is there other stuff? Of course, having a basic knowledge of other things is expected.

There's atemi-waza in Jujutsu and Judo, however if my goal was mostly learning effective atemi-waza and counters to it I wouldn't go to a Judo or Jujutsu school.

Zach, that's just it. I really don't think you understand the way in which I train and teach shorin ryu. I have a solid knowledge of grappling for fighting and I can post and write pages on the subject. However, my striking knowledge is 10x that of my grappling knowledge. Its one thing to argue a point on the net, but it is another thing to believe that these arguements fully represent our training habits.